{"id":21158,"date":"2014-02-17T09:10:48","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T14:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=21158"},"modified":"2014-02-17T15:13:51","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T20:13:51","slug":"marty-thau-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/marty-thau-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Marty Thau Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"I<\/a>

I coulda had Marty Thau Presents 2×5!<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m seeing reports that New York punk impresario Marty Thau<\/strong> has died at 75<\/a>. Official reports are far and few between, however, in this electronic age, in which almost anyone who’s ever striven to be anyone merits a flurry of “he\/she was a great (wo)man…” tributes. I cannot sincerely attest to the greatness of Marty Thau, but he seemed like an interesting person around whom cool artists gathered. He seemed at least as interesting as that spoken-word 1-hit wonder poet Maggie Estes, who sadly passed away at the age of 50 and who had a fling with MTV in the early ’90s, so let’s give it up for Marty Thau.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Although I’d known his name from the start of my teenage immersion in punk rock, thanks to the Marty Thau Presents 2×5<\/em> compilation album on his Red Star label, what always looked like a cool comp that I for\u2014some combination of twisted, self-hating reasons\u2014bypassed buying over numerous opportunities to do so, I knew almost nothing about the man, only that he had his hands in the start of the careers of a number of ’60s garage and girl group\u2013informed bands of that era: The New York Dolls, The Ramones, Blondie, The Fleshtones<\/a>… I wonder if he ever felt tormented by the success of his record biz peer, Sire Records’ founder Seymour Stein. Sorry, I’m projecting.<\/p>\n

I’m sorry I never bought a copy of Marty Thau Presents 12×5<\/em>. It would have been cool to own, if only for the contributions by Bloodless Pharaohs<\/strong>, Brian Setzer’s pre-Stray Cats, Philadelphia-based band, managed by Bobby Startup<\/strong><\/a>, the Philadelphia punk impresario \u00a0who was thanked on the back of the Stray Cats’ debut album and the terrifying (at least to my 17-year-old self), tattooed, gravelly voiced booking agent and DJ who somehow agreed to let the terrible high school band Townsman andyr and I cobbled together play at 2 of the clubs he ran, including an opening gig for Suicide’s Alan Vega<\/strong>. It was the open-mindedness of characters like Startup and Thau that occasionally allowed even the blind squirrels of the music world to find a nut. Or something like that. That’s the lesson I’ll take from the life of a Marty Thau.<\/p>\n

According to one of the scant reports on his death that I’ve come across, Thau was working on a rock memoir at the time of his death. I’m looking forward to reading this excerpt on the mystifying Suicide<\/a>, one of the band’s in Thau’s stable.<\/p>\n